Stroke: Identify the Symptoms and Save Life

February 28, 2009

I have a story for you, a piece from my own heart.

My loving grandmother, aged 84, had been doing really well when I talked to her a fortnight ago. She was all set for a pilgrimage with a cousin and that was the last time I talked to her. “I will get both of you His bountiful blessings”, she told me. Though I was happy about her well being i was thoroughly displeased about her travelling and urged to take care of her health. I heard from my mother that my grandma had reach back safely and is staying with her cousin before she got home. I was happy for her. A few days after, my mother rang me up with a fragile voice to convey a shocking news. My grandmother is hospitalized after having suffered from a severe stroke. It was past 24 hours and the doctors were not sure they could do much. I was speechless. She was taken to hospital hours after they found her unusually slurry, speechless and numb. They failed to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Nobody knows what happened and exactly when it happened. Everybody washed their hands out of it. My grandmother is now half-paralyzed, hardly opening her mouth or swallowing for more than two weeks. And there is nobody to shower my words of frustration and heart-broken unhappiness on other than the Almighty Himself. For the rest of the kith and kin, life moved on. But not for my parents who are by her side all through day and night.

My mother asked me to write about stroke if it all that would help someone in some part of the world to save a life.

Stroke is something that demands speedyaction. And speedy action can guarantee good chances of a full recovery. Even the most educated of the people fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. And especially when you are familiar with a person and his mannerism you fail even more, miserably. Something similar happened to my grandmother who is bed ridden, smiling and nodding for reasons unknown. She has gone from us. A stroke occurs when there is disrupted blood supply to the brain. Around 120 thousand people in the U.K.suffer from stroke every year while 5.3 million Americans are victimized annually. And women form more than half of the victims of stroke.The tragedy strikes when you ignore the symptoms and wait for it to go away on its own. There are five main symptoms to a stroke. They are related to how one walks, talks, reaches, sees, and feels. Remember that all these symptoms are sudden when you see it in a person or find it in yourself.

A sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body. (Reach)

Inability to move one side of the body. (walk)

Loss of balance. (walk)

Slurred, indistinctive speech. (talk)

Difficulty swallowing. (feel)

If you or somebody feels sudden and sever headache. In the old, it might be mild or absent. (feel)

Confusion, trouble speaking or understanding (feel)

Trouble seeing in one or both eyes (see)

Some women suffer from

sudden face and limb pain

sudden nausea

sudden fatigue

sudden chest pain

sudden shortness of breath

sudden palpitations

sudden hiccups

Stroke is life-threatening but at the same time highly preventable. It is very important to recognize if your loved one is being unusual. If he cannot smile without drooping his face to a side, raise his arms without an arm falling downward or repeat a simple sentence with clarity then you need to hurry. Every minute counts in the case of a stroke and you are on a count down. It has to be diagnosed and treated in the first three hours for optimum reversal of damage.Those under risk are old aged people, women, diabetic patients, those who suffered a heart attack or stroke before, heart patients or those with a family history of heart diseases. High blood pressure (untreated), alcoholism, high cholesterol, lack of physical activity and smoking can easily lead you the stroke.